Any course/tutorial recommendations for Beginner Creators?
codedevil666
Posts: 0
Hello Daz3d community, I am a new Daz user for 1 months now and I am pretty good with the basics, but for me there is a lack of knowledge on the creator part (mainly because I couldn't find any good tutorials for it). I am creating my assets in Blender, but as soon as I import them into Daz I get completly lost on what to do with it. (mainly custom hair and clothing)
Some tutorials are pretty bad at explaining, for example this one, which cuts off the moment you import it into daz, anyway... https://blog.daz3d.com/create-your-own-3d-hair-with-daz-studio-and-blender/
Do you have any video/course recommendations for me, which explains every detail and step until I can sell my items?
Cheers
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Comments
The tutorials that I constantly refer back to are Josh Darlings over at YouTube. He does a great job of explaining how to do a variety of things. There is no one tutorial that shows how to do everything.
The best hair tutorial I've seen have been by Lady Littlefox. She has two hair tutorials one on modelling and another on texturing. Her cowl dress tutorial was one that helped me to get started.
https://www.daz3d.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=Littlefox+tutorials
Patience, it takes time to learn all the ropes. See how the products you purchased were made. Clothing for example has a LOT of extra morphs to be made also for them to work correctly on their target figures.
https://www.daz3d.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=tutorials
And as was mentioned, there are video tutorials over on YouTube and a few other video sites.
VERY generally speaking, import .obj into D/S, decorate it, Save it as a Figure/Prop asset. Make some more mats for it. Save those as Mat presets to a subfolder of the newly made prop.
Hair made in other programs, unless it's also like a 3D mesh, will only work in the program that made it. One can make some nice hair in D/S too. The PAs [so I understand] have access to a few more creation tools when it comes to hair and HD morphs.
You won't find a magic land that explains it all. DAZ users are a huge majority. Daz Content creators are way less numerous. And good Daz creators even less. And of all of them, those who take the time to share what they took so long to understand can be counted on the fingers of one hand so to say.
Learning curve is steep. And proper sources of info are scarce. Even if very motivated, and with a very solid background in "real" 3D, it'll be a long road.
Download video tutorials and keep them safe somewhere, Youtube channels aren't there forever. Only good sources of tutorials I know. Some also have paid tutorials here in the store. Sadly it's often webinars rather than well video composited tutorials, so be ready to watch 30 minutes of video to only extract a few useful info :
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benalive (Herschel Hoffmeyer). Must have for character creation.
Josh Darling. Too few videos, but someone who definitely understands what he's talking about (part of the Daz team). Once you master all he explains, you've already gone a long way towards making your 3D assets Daz compatible.
Mada de Leeuw : excellent reference for well explained technical info about specific things.
SickleYield : Similar to Mada. Excellent and definitely solid technical skills.
Tofualamode. Not english but a gold mine of info.
Syrus Dante. Excellent, sadly it's not tutorials and there's no sound. But definitely precious info.
xenic101 3D
Coffee Art
DarkEdgeDesign (mostly hard surface rigging)
Allen Renfeldt
Blondie9999
Catherine3678ab
Esha. Some good info but it's webinars rather than well video composited tutorials, which for paid content is a shame in my opinion. Be ready to watch hours of video and extract at the end only a tiny portion of useful info. But still, necessary to view some of that user's content.
LayLo 3D
RenderHub 3D
Kim Shneider (Arki / Cgan)
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Create some Word documents and feel free to go through them in a scholastic way, clearly writing a summary of what you understand with screenshots to support it. You will have to create your own "tutorials" because they don't really exist in one place. And it's only through practice that you'll come to understand, little by little, what Daz really has under the bonnet.
I went from 3D Studio (DOS) to Softimage, Maya, 3DS Max, 3D-Coat, ZBrush, Marvelous Designer and now Blender. And Daz has been and still is clearly the hardest I've ever had to use. Not because it's in any way more complex. But because sources of info are scarce and lost in a vast majority amateurish questions answered by amateur users who both scratched just a tiny surface of what's to understand and use the wrong terminology to describe things they don't fully understand. Which makes the search for true solid info a terrible pain...
Anyway, with the names I wrote down you have far more than enough to begin ;)
Good luck.
One of the problems facing any tutorial maker is that there are changes made sometimes with each edition of Daz Studio that comes out. The name of the tool, the workflow, the glitches for what works or should work and doesn't but will next time, etc. can certainly make for some grey hairs. {don't pull out your hair, it might not grow back}
After watching a few of those paid for webinars I understood then what a few of the negative comments in the forums were about. When the "teacher" is asking the "class" how to and has never done said steps before, wow. But yes there is some very good information scattered throughout these videos. If money is no object buy them when you want to, if money is an object they DO go on sale at various times. The ones I managed to luck into were found in the $1.99 basket sales. IF you find a tutorial there that you want, buy it RIGHT AWAY. Don't leave it in the cart. It's amazing how fast the great deals leave the sales basket while all the other stuff might be in there for a day or two.
Thanks everyone, I know it will be a rough learning curve for me to adapt to the software, I have heard that from many sources, but I hope the effort will be worth it! As a main Blender user, I am always used to just use youtube or stackexchange, but yeah I give it a try.
Well is a pain in the ass, there is a lot of confusion about how to master Daz Studio.
@hansolocambo, You said: "Create some Word documents and feel free to go through them in a scholastic way"
You are right, that is what I am trying to do now.
I have used some graphic tools, these are really good, from the basic to the average functions I can do what I can.
The main problem with Daz Studio is the way to work with the figures, environments and props.
Up to this moment I can't realize a good render to place into gallery.
Figure displacement, wardrobe that does not fit, how about the way figures are placed? Arms, legs or head in bad shape or placement.
I am tired of this kind of chaos, so I am trying to make my own written tutorial, at an slow pace, do not expect me to put one in very short time.
Now, if the top boffins could unite and make a written tutorial or an interactive tutorial, this would be a big win for all, set aside the idea of make money for useless info, and get into action please!
@Catherine3678ab, I am glad you are always in the lookout on the forums!
You have got a very good way how to guide with the things that are needed.
You are a Top Cat.
I am not done anything to post into the gallery.
Trying to thinkering with the controls, sometimes the perspective view is ok, but not same witht the Front, Right, Left or rear view.
That's when I place the environment, other things are to change the placement of the arms or legs or maybe the head position form center to Left or Right.
If I remember very well you said before that I could be in "confusion city" and I am really there with no way out!
Agree totally with this post...Sickleyield and Mada are definitely good sources of info. Sickleyield used to make meshs for elder scrolls prior to doing ds stuff and has a really good knowledge of how to do stuff in DS and blender. Catherine also...
I do this in onenote as it's easy to download or clip from web pages useful threads...also I can organise it into sections. Texturing, rigging, shaders etc.
Evernote would work also...or similar.
Gee thanks
Actual there is a way out - one step at a time ;-)
Remembering back to the pre D/S4 days, esp. for stills, the view for the camera is the main one that needs to look correct. Nobody's going to see the poke through or whatever in the back if the camera is focused for the front, so don't worry about it too much.
I like one tip somebody somewhere in these forums mentioned: keep the figure in the centre, parent all the scene to a null or something, move/rotate/etc. the scene around the figure.
Then for the lighting, find the way that works best for you and that's the number one choice to make then. For me, my go-to lighting [and I've bought many light sets] is the Easy Portraits one. Several presets, Click and double-check the render settings. Turn off ground stuff if no ground in render [so Iray won't calculate shadows that won't be happening]. Turn off show Dome IF have own background chosen.
Powerpose normally works well for minor pose tweaks. Again on those $1.99 sale days it's a great time to load up with poses. Certain sets in particular will have a variety of particial poses - some even with props!
When you are happy with your render, okay there's the gallery here ... I never did figure out how to upload to it ... I and many others also post work over at DeviantArt. They have a "Mature" shield as well for those NSFW images.
Dreamlight also has several great "how to" tips for working in Daz Studio posted over at YouTube. I particularly liked his video for how to use photo images for backgrounds.
@Catherine3678ab, You said: "For me, my go-to lighting [and I've bought many light sets] is the Easy Portraits one... Again on those $1.99 sale days it's a great time to load up with poses. Certain sets in particular will have a variety of particial poses - some even with props!"
Hope I can see some of the things you said, I have to make sure, I can at least work with the program, otherwise I will waste money for nothing.
At this stage, I can't even become an artist, reach the Olympus mountain to find inmortality and get a laurel crown.
You may ask, how you go with the written tutorial? snail pace, gathering info here and there, trying to adapt it as usable information.
I did cover the installation stuff with no nonsense instructions and many screenshots.
Wish I can share this information, I don't even know how to do this.
Nothing else at the moment.
Now I ask how on earth want Daz to do this for the new people that never had used the program.
"Embark on your epic 3D adventure with15% OFF*your first order."
Put a better tutorial, I prefer the Interactive one, this must cover all aspects of the program from beginner, average or advanced users.
If Daz do not make an effort to address this area of concern, then those who have wanted to embark on it, will tire and hate the program, ultimately it will be an epic failure!
I have a couple of months trying, I have not produced anything for the gallery.
Not even I would reccomend to any family member to embark on something that they will not understand, nor that they will have no patience.
When this issue is addressed, maybe is worth a try for the uninitiated.
Somebody said something in a YouTube comment for a very different topic video. Something which most of us didn't know. Very helpful for some of those tutorial videos. You can pause the video, then use the keyboard arrows to jump a few frames in either direction.
Well, I think we'd best wait for D/S5 before going into the details of how to make an interactive tutorial. IMHO it is a LOT easier to make a video or .pdf tutorial. Even the best laid out book tutorial I've seen on the market could not cover "all aspects" of the program.
You know, we have the forums. You start a project, when you run into a situation requiring input, you can ask a question and somebody will likely pass by with an answer.
All aspects, golly gee ... what are you trying to do? Render an image? Well the program can render an image. Hit the render key. Rig a figure? Triax/weight or Legacy? Instructions are different. Prop or Figure? Instructions are different. Long story short, you'd probably require an encyclopedia set ;-)
Here's a useful set of tutorials: https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/332431/daz-studio-beginner-tutorials-updated-every-sunday
And even for those of us who are not PAs, just wanting to create some decent clothing, this is invaluable IMHO:
https://www.daz3d.com/pjcm-poses--for-clothing-creators-for-genesis-8
@Catherine3678ab, wish I could go the long way and have some patience as you say.
But there are moments when working on something that do not get right, pondering, a lot of time spent for nothing!
Then in a fit of rage I would like to smash that keyboard and mouse, (maybe some people would feel the same situation)
I used before CorelDraw (an old version), Paint Shop Pro (an old version too) this was a good program, but a relative of mine wanted it to use for the retouch of pictures from camera, I was obliged to give it away.
Adobe CS (I believe this was the last before the greedy company wanted to lease the program)
GIMP and Paint.net are two of the most useful programs I do use, sure the learning curve is different in both programs, but is possible to use them.
Daz Studio 4.x looks like it were easy to work with, the learning curve is really hard to get working the way anyone may want.
Point to areas of the figure and then all chaos happen, I had to close the program and could not save the work I was doing.
Now tell me, can anyone become Harry Potter or Hermione to do magic in a matter of days, using Daz Studio, when the learning curve is steep?
Yes I agree. It's the first thing I bought from daz in a long time.
Well, yes. There is that in program tutorial which walks one through setting up a scene and rendering an image. Somewhere on the store pages are some links to the company's videos for starting out in D/S as well.
Stay away from the tool that looks like a bone with a pencil through it. That's a bone editor tool.
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Here is the store's tutorial list:
https://www.daz3d.com/help/help-daz-3d-video-tutorials
For the question:
Because Daz3D is a STORE. They encourage people to spend money on products made by Daz3D AND the PAs who are selling their products in the store as well.